The city which Kyu guided her group through was... not beautiful. Obviously, this was one of the more poor districts in which Sage saw primarily Elves or poor and worried looking Humans walking through the streets. Some seemed to suffered from some kind of disease as told by their pale faces and often hunched, feverish gazes Others were homeless, sitting at the corners or in front of shops with signs that begged the bystanders for money. Sometimes, when Sage passed by an alley he could faintly see a mattress or sleeping bag, surrounded by some personal belongings. Interestingly, the homeless-looking people were almost entirely Humans with very few Elves and even these appeared to stick together in groups.

When running with his eye's over the buildings Sage noticed that there were several of these big concrete blocks in this district, similar to the one in which the Ptaha-Clan resided. Around these three or four stories high behemoths where smaller apartment blocks, separating the big ones like undrawn borders. More than once Sage could see banned Balmorian flags, either the royal variant or the national variant and sometimes even an Elfish Maranurrian Flag: Red-yellow with a green crossbar and three crowns in the centre. The official national flag could barely be seen, no matter how much Sage searched for the blue-yellow banner. For some reason, Sage knew the meaning of all of these flags, even the obscure red-yellow Maranurrian flag which stood for both the communist destiny of the Maranurrian Nation as well as the feudal rule of the ancient Elvish noble families. From an ideological perspective it was weird how Elves worshipped the revolutions promised by communism while at the same time wanting to return to the feudal roots of their country, on the other hand were Elves very collectivist in nature and perhaps didn't even care which kind of Elvish society would replace the human dominance on the continent. All of these symbols on the flags were banned obviously, but in these Clan-dominated districts the police did not have the necessary authority to enforce a ban on pro-elvish symbolism. Perhaps this was the reason why the more authoritarian parties of this country tried to ban clans and the influence they had on these slums.

Sage was so deep in his thoughts that he almost missed it when Kyu turned left and led them through a narrow alley towards a neighbouring district. Almost instantaneously the look of the streets and buildings around them changed to the point where Sage wasn't even sure if they were still in the same city anymore. Suddenly, the quality of the roads and sidewalks improved and the endless monotone concrete-monsters where replaced by elegantly designed multiple-party apartments, shops and restaurants. The population walking around in the city turned overwhelmingly Human and seemed much happier, chatting and shopping in the street canyons. Kyu did not have much of an eye for them, though Sage slowed down a bit. He couldn't get to see enough of the place, as everything here seemed like a new experience that filled his empty mind.

What was an iPhone?

Was that shop that sells alcohol publicly?

All of this seemed so weird to him, as if he wasn't used to this society at all. Instead of the familiarity that he expected from walking among other humans, all he felt was like an alien that had been dropped on a different planet. Soon the rest of the group took the lead, slowly leaving Sage behind in the crowds of people around him.

“Hey, were loosing someone!”, called Curel upon noticing the distance between him and the group and turned around to grab him by the arm to pull him back to the group.

“Don't stray away.”, Kyu added more quietly when Sage was with them again. “Our kind isn't welcome in these fancy-pantsy flatear districts. If we don't want to run into a police-control we should hurry.”

Quietly Sage nodded and put an effort into ignoring all those foreign smells, sights and noises. The road in front of them took a turn left and headed straight for a wide river that separated the southern living districts from the central business districts with the impressive skyscrapers that formed a long, stretched out skyline.

Suddenly, upon seeing this skyline, Sage had a weird feeling, nagging at the back of his head, as if he had forgotten something extremely important, that he wanted to do in one of these skyscrapers. Almost involuntarily her eyes fixed on one of the highest buildings near the rim of the skyline and stared up into the highest stage, as if he was trying to spot something... or someone.

Unfortunately, his almost meditative state was interrupted when Kyu grabbed him by the arm again and pulled him off the road and onto the thin stripe of greenery that separated the waterfront from the river.

The bridge under which Kyu gathered her troops was quite a feat of modern architecture, spanning at least a hundred meters over the stream that lead directly to the sea. Large freight ships were crossing the sea below it, smaller fishing boats and yachts of rich Humans could be seen in moderate distance towards the shoreline. Sage watched the scenery in awe and only Kyu’s rough pokes could get him back into focus.

“Okay, guys, remember our tactics. Do not attack before I give the signal. It's better to run away then to get caught. And also, don't show your faces...”

With these words she pulled a black backpack off her shoulders and carefully placed it in the scrubby greenery below herself. When she opened it she revealed the equipment for the raid. Smoke-bombs, telescopic truncheons, some petrol in a plastic box, a lighter and some green face-masks with a crown icon on it. Kyu handed a face-mask, a truncheon and a smoke-bomb to each of them, but kept the petrol and the backpack for herself.

“Ready?” she asked after each of them had covered their face sufficiently and each of the girls had bound her long hair back into a ponytail. Sage felt really uncomfortable, but it was too late to chicken out now, because everyone else in the group nodded once and decisively. Too late to turn back now.

Like natives on the warpath they snuck up the green stripe of the bridge again to the street, which seemed pretty busy this morning. The road was stuffed with cars, trying to cross the bridge into the business areas of the city. To Sage it was an endless avalanche of steel and aluminium, heading for the peaks of this concrete desert on the other side of a polluted river. But not all people who crossed were humans. A surprising amount of the people who entered the bridge on the side-walks where Elves. It appeared that car-possession was a rare trait among the working-class Elves of the southern districts . Many of them were even kids who walked in groups or were accompanied by young women. On the other side of the road, they saw their target. It was a camp by the roadside, consisting of three tents and five motorcycles. The spot was occupied by Humans , each wearing a matching biker coat. They were blasting English music onto the street, which was so noisy that even Sage, who could understood English, couldn't make out any lyrics except some racist slurs in the chorus. Next to the roadside, they had erected signs and placards, giving out a clear message.

“Elves are not equal to Humans” with a devilishly grinning old Elf next to it.

“God hates the Elves” with two kissing male Elves next to it, looking unhealthy and small.

“Your time on this planet is over!” with a large, white hand spraying insecticide over Elf-mosquito hybrids.

“No Elfish-Jewish conspiracy in Maranurr!” and two hands shaking each other, one with the flag of Israel and one with the flag of Balmor in its sleeve.

Only one of the humans was on his feet, walking over the sidewalk and occasionally shouting a racist slur against a passing group of elves or just flat out spitting or kicking after them. The Elves did their best to avoid him wherever they could, obviously aware of the humans goal to achieve an escalation. But it didn't always work and so every now and then the human could roughly push an Elf lady away from himself that got too close. That bull-neck was at least two heads bigger then even the biggest Elf women and none of them attempted to even fight back when he assaulted them.

Immediately, Sages inhibition’s to commit violence against these guys sunk rapidly. Yeah, they probably deserved it, even if Kyu's methods were highly illegal. Kyu gestured the group to remain hidden behind the bridges rail and peeked to get an overview of the situation.

After observing and planning for a few seconds she leaned back and said: “Stay behind. I think if I'd burn these motorcycles, we'd hurt them much more then our bats ever could.”

“No...” Curel contradicted quite quickly. “I will do it.”

Kyu gave her a confused look, but Curel was quick to explain: “Hey, let's be honest. In an actual fight, I’m of no use to you. But I'm small and unsuspicious. I could sneak up to the camp without them noticing me as a threat. Besides, Sage is going to need you as a guide, once you're trying to escape.”

Sage was genuinely thankful they had Curel in the group, who seemed to be the only one to constantly keep an eye out for him and where he needed help. It was almost like she was babysitting him.

Kyu nodded in agreement: “Alright, do as you want.”

She handed over the backpack with the petrol and made space for Curel to climb up the green. The Riverelf threw the backpack over her shoulder, which looked quite comical due to her size and rushed onto the street. The traffic was so stuck, that she could easily move between the cars and avoid getting hit. Also, thanks to her small body size, she could use even the smallest of the cars as cover, so it was impossible for the humans on the other side to spot her. In fact, it got pretty hard for even Sage and Kyu to track her movements, once she had passed the second row of cars.

For her size she was moving surprisingly fast and crossed the sidewalk using a crowd of Elves as additional cover. Sage could see from his position how she continued her stealth mission by using the motorcycles the hide behind while spilling petrol over the saddles and engines. Quickly she moved from motorcycle to motorcycle, preparing to set them on fire all at the same time but she only had enough petrol to bathe three out of five of them in flammable liquid. She threw the plastic container away and pulled the lighter out of her pocket. Seconds later the first of the Harleys was set ablaze and she quickly turned to burn the second one.

When Curel moved to the third bike that she had prepared, a loud screech of warning came from the camp. Five huge, muscular men had jumped up and two where already running to their motorcycles.

“Now, attack!” Kyu shouted and pulled the truncheon from her pocket.

All of the Elves plus Sage and Inu jumped from their cover and onto the street. Unlike Curel, none of them paid much attention on staying hidden. Kyu specifically went as far as to walk over the bonnets of the cars to get to the camp quicker. Unfortunately, they seem to have underestimated the distance and obstructions they had to cross to aid Curel, who had thrown the lighter away and pulled the smoke-bomb. The two men were already closing in on her as the support for her was only halfway across the street and even though Curel’s running speed surely were impressive for her size, she wasn't fit to outrun someone with almost twice her leg length.

“Fuck!” Sage thought, as he realizing that this wasn't going at all as planned. Curel was going to be captured by them and who knew what they would do to her then. Kyu was already one row ahead of the rest and yelled: “Take on someone your size!”

Unfortunately this did not stop the two humans from chasing after Curel, but made one of the other two men who had initially stayed at the camp step into Kyu’s way, swinging an iron chain at her. Kyu dealt with the situation as heroically as she could. She ducked down, below that Human’s strike, which was admittedly not too hard given Kyu’s smaller body proportions. Then she countered by swinging her truncheon into his side like she was David attempting to cut down Goliath. And indeed, it was an impressive testimony of Kyu’s fighting prowess that the man bent over painfully holding his rips where the young Elf’s weapon had hit him.

Still, Curel was in danger and Sage was the closest one to reach her. Right in this moment, the situation got significantly worse as Curel stumbled from her attempt to get from a crouch into a standing position again and starting to run at the same time. The first of the humans was now only less than two meters away from her and Sage pumped everything of his willpower into the goal to reach and protect her. In this state of utter desperation, his legs allowed him to do some impressive manoeuvring and leaps between the cars. Still, he wouldn't reach her in time, no matter how much he tried.

In this moment something weird, yet very fortunate happened. Only a meter before he could reach the tripping Riverelf, the human stumbled and stopped in his movements, looking around confusedly as if he had lost track of where Curel actually was or as if a sudden attack of dizziness had come over him.

Curel and Sage who witnessed this behaviour were both equally happy about whatever was going on in that humans mind, as he was now defenceless, even if it was for just a second.

In full swing Sage tackled the human, sending him flying in a painful-looking angle to the ground.

Curel now had time to regain her balance and threw the smoke-bomb into the camp, close to the motorcycles. A loud hissing noise ran across the battlefield, as if the fuse of a firework had been ignited.

'Bang!'

The noise of the bottle exploding was impressive and immediately released thousands of sharp glass splinters along with smoke into the air. The third motorcycle got hit by the heat wave and the petrol ignited, causing a smaller, second explosion, that sounded more like a 'wham'. Now, not only the camp was in panic, but also the people on the street realized what was going on. Some obviously thought there was a terrorist attack with people leaving their cars to avoid becoming a collateral damage and Elf children fleeing onto the street to avoid confrontation.

“Run!” Sage shouted towards Curel and got ready to face the second guy who had chased after her by instinctively lowering his stance and gripping onto his truncheon. For a second he was genuinely worried about the outcome of this duel, as this guy was bigger than him and a lot heavier. But as it seemed someone was actually having his back in this situation. Like a snow-white force of nature, Inu sprung into his field of view, ramming her shoulder into that bull-neck’s chest. She was not smaller than him. Maybe a lighter though but for that also, filled with ferocious determination.